5-7-5 Rides Again: High Noon Haiku at Dobama

Kathleen Cerveny (left) 2009 Haiku Death Match champion, and Geoffrey Landis, runner-up.
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High Noon Haiku, a haiku poetry showdown featuring the region’s toughest Haiku poets, takes place one night only on Friday, May 20 at Dobama Theater, 2340 Lee Road, in Cleveland Heights. The event is produced jointly by Heights Arts and Dobama Theatre. Open mike and social hour start at 7 p.m., Haiku competition at 8 p.m.

Marcus Bales, poet and general arts impresario, reprises his role in the 2008 Haiku Death Match as master of ceremonies. (In deference to the Japanese survivors and victims of the March earthquake and tsunami, the contest was re-named “High Noon Haiku.”)

The defending champion, Haiku Master of the 2009 Haiku Death Match, is Kathleen Cerveny, of Shaker Heights. Geoffrey Landis, a prolific haiku poet, science fiction writer, and NASA scientist, was Kathleen’s main competition in the 2009 match, but will not be competing this year. High Noon Haiku organizers expect a lot of fresh talent to vie for the—well, there is no prize, just a good firm handshake from the m.c. and the adulation of the crowd. 

Bales held the first Cleveland-area haiku slam, the “Haiku-Death-Match,” in 2005. The competition pits pairs of poets against each other, reading their most finely honed haiku. One poet wears a white headband, the other a red one. After each round, audience members vote for the best poem by holding up either the white or red side of a voting paddle. The winner of each round advances to the next. In the final round, the two highest-scoring poets compete against each other. The champion (as Bales points out, “there can be only one”) is the poet who gets the most votes. 

Many well-known poets have competed in the match, including Jack McGuane, former poet Laureate of Lakewood and 2008 champion; poet and fiction writer Mary Truzillo; Loren Weiss, the second poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights; and Claire McMahon, editor of Moonlit journal. Kathleen Cerveny was the dark horse of the 2009 match. She says she was “totally amazed” to find herself in the final round, pitted against Landis. She’s training hard, writing and revising—but admits to being a little nervous, not knowing exactly whom she’ll be up against. Voicing every champion’s worst fear, Cerveny says “What if some obscure poet pulls out the perfect haiku and knocks the audience dead?”

Tickets and information:

Phone Heights Arts at 216.371.3457

E-mail heightsarts@heightsarts.org

Advance: $8 admission / +$4 to vote (voting optional)

Door: $10 admission / +5 to vote (voting optional)